Kjersti Larsen. Where Humans and Spirits Meet: The Politics of Rituals and Identified Spirits in Zanzibar.

Kjersti Larsen. Where Humans and Spirits Meet: The Politics of Rituals and Identified Spirits in Zanzibar. Kjersti Larsen. Where Humans and Spirits Meet: The Politics ofRituals and Identified Spirits in Zanzibar. New York and Oxford:Berghahn Books, 2008. 173 pp. Vol. 5 in Oxford University's seminar series, SocialIdentities; eds. Shirley Ardener, Tamara Dragadze, and Jonathan Webber. The construction of identity has been of interest in anthropologyfor some decades and was the motivation for the Oxford seminar foundedin the 1980s by Edwin Ardener (d. 1987) from which this series derives.In multi-cultural populations, the establishment of identity isessential, but can be tricky. The author of this book contends thatamong the heterogeneous population of Zanzibar, spirit possessionprovides a means whereby sharp differences in genders, ethnicities, andreligious faiths can be publicized and negotiated, and the ambiguitiesgenerated by such differences can be resolved. Kjersti Larsen has solidcredentials to offer such a study. Her fieldwork in Zanzibar comprised21/2 years from 1984 into the 1990s and was conducted completely inSwahili without an interpreter. This book is based on fieldworkconducted in a one-year stay, 1991-1992, and a return in 1997, by whichtime she knew the society well, and her subjects seem to have becomequite comfortable with her participant observation. Focusing mainly onthe social roles of women, Larsen describes the bases of Zanzibariidentity vis-avis that of mainland Swahili, and the deep role of Islamand the Qur'an in Zanzibari life. But her most importantcontributions are in her explication of Zanzibaris'conceptualization of the disparate units within their society, and theirnegotiation among them through the means of spirit possession. Over nine chapters, she introduces the topic and the location, andshe describes the complex heterogeneity of the society, the nature ofspirits, spirit-human relationships, concepts and problems of identity,gender relationships, ideas of the physical body, and the central roleof possession rituals in negotiating among all these issues. She leadsus through such rituals and introduces us to various participants, bothhumans and spirits. She wants to emphasize that spirits are real inZanzibar, and to show how she herself "came to see thespirits," (6) and to "accept the reality of spirits"(12), and she takes us through her own introduction into and immersionin possession states. Her descriptions of the nature and types ofspirits is fascinating. There are huge numbers of ranked and genderedspirits in Zanzibar, and specific ones are consulted on many issues, andpeople can enter into long-term contractual relationships with them.Possessing spirits may be of different gender from the possessed and arealways of a different "tribe," Larsen's translation ofkabila, a specific population. As well as from different parts ofZanzibar, spirits are Muslims from Arabia, Christians from Madagascarand Ethiopia, pagans from Pemba, and they display the culture andbehaviors of those areas. Spirits know far more than people; in spite oftheir own religious orientation all know the Qur'an well; theirpower is "limitless," and they can be ruthless, evenmurderous, in their exploitation of people. Larsen's rendering ofeverything is sensitive and sincere. And the book has a very helpfulglossary; though the Index is quite thin. Her analysis critiques anthropological understanding of spiritpossession as having emphasized its role in health, suffering, andpowerlessness mainly among the socially marginal who lack access tostandard avenues to success. She stresses its centrality inheterogeneous Zanzibar as a means of establishing self and personhood.She means for her study of a central social role for spirit possessionto take a place among a body of well-known similar studies byanthropologists, including Boddy, Crapanzano, Lambek, L.A. Sharp, andStoller; and studies which regard the phenomenon not just as a socialtool, but as genuine experience. Her emphasis on the centrality ofspirit possession as an experience available to all and important forsocialization, acculturation, political maneuvering, negotiating ofvarious social and sexual tensions, and identity negotiation in thisheterogeneous community, is important and significant. But the book needed a thorough and careful editing beforepublication. There are several problems with it, some stylistic andeditorial, which can be discussed first. Larsen's English style isoften clumsy and could have been smoothed; but in the opinion of thisreviewer, the author's most serious stylistic flaw is her tediousrepetition. She repeats herself frequently, over and over, both withinand between chapters--and such a slim book (with such an exorbitantprice tag!) really can't afford so much repetition. Sometimes it isexplicit ("as I have already mentioned"), sometimes the authorseems unaware that she has said all this before, even several times.With a careful editing the book's verbiage might be reduced by asmuch as one quarter, and Larsen's message would be much clearer andmore effective. Another editorial failing is in locating the fieldwork site. Anextremely small-scale map of the east coast of Africa appears on p. vii,far from the discussion of the local geography on p. 25; but"Zanzibar" does not appear on the map at all, and the scalepermits only the location of the two main islands, Unguja, whereZanzibar Town is situated, and Pemba. Two more maps should have beenincluded, one focusing on the territory of Zanzibar, and a large-scalemap demarcating the densely-packed human geography of her fieldworksite. In Chapter 2, Larsen describes the layout of Zanzibar Town,focusing on its district of Ng'amba and the neighborhood which washer residence and principal fieldwork site; and she reconstructs thehistory of the locale's heterogeneity and the development of itsdistinct neighborhoods. A map showing the layout of the neighborhoodsand their locations vis-a-vis each other, would be invaluable. Larsen's descriptions of some incidents are too cursory andraise some unanswered questions. For example, she briefly mentions acurious ritual performed to assist her emergence from a state .ofpossession by Christian spirits, "who drink a lot of brandy whenthey celebrate" (12). She was quite drunk, and "the medicalwater belonging to these spirits" (13) was poured over her head;she went home, slept, and recovered. The book's cover apparentlyshows such a ritual involving this "special water," a form ofdawa (medicine); but there is no caption for the cover photo (therecipient of the medicinal bath is surely not Larsen!), and no morediscussion of the ritual or this medicinal concoction. One final set of reactions emerges from reading Larsen'saccount of Zanzibari possession, which has implications for our entirediscipline. She discusses the social functions of possession at length,as well as the ways in which anthropologists and philosophers and otherscan understand it; and she emphasizes the role of mimesis in theactors' behaviors. She gives detailed descriptions of the sometimesconvoluted dramas that different spirits play through their human hosts.But she keeps herself distant from the construction of these dramas andgives only cursory mention to the neurophysiology of the phenomenon. Shedescribes the people's sensations of possession, and her own, andasserts the "reality" of spirits, for Zanzibaris and forherself. But what does she mean, exactly? What kind of"reality" is she talking about? Her objectivity and acceptanceof her subjects' reality is admirable anthropology--and it reflectsan attitude that has dominated anthropological studies of spiritpossession; but it is long past time for this attitude to besupplemented by some hard questions of the sort, "What'sreally going on here?" The brain sciences have expandedtremendously in recent decades, and we know a lot about the neurobiologyof trance states. It should be incumbent upon field anthropologists toacknowledge that this is a fundamental human capacity and to explore,frankly and honestly, both the cultural and the biological constructionof this "reality." Especially as they cannot easily attachelectrodes to their subjects' heads, they should provide intricatedescriptions of the processes of entry into, behavior during, andemergence from such states, and the cultural content of the wholescenario, with the full recognition that it is a cultural constructionassisted by an altered neurophysiological state. Then, some trulymeaningful data can be presented about this variation of a universalhuman capacity; and new avenues will open into the core nature ofreligious belief. Phillips Stevens, Jr. SUNY at Buffalo